Baguio Midland Courier Website

EDITORIAL

Not Over The Hump Yet

Global warming notwith standing, the City of Baguio continues to strut and to enhance her charms as a cosmopolitan community this corner of the country.

The catch lies in a temperate climate that has proved conducive both to community life and to business pursuits alike.

The other is a prevailing peace and order that is insulated from the headline-hogging events that sometimes put the country into the spotlight as in the case of the Quirino Grandstand hostage drama in Manila.

It is both a strength and attraction.

It is one cause of celebration as the city turns a new leaf at 101 years old, by all means a far cry from the settlement that was declared a city by the Philippine Assembly on Sept. 1, 1909.

It is a historic event that we remember this week as we join the city in celebrating its founding anniversary. It is also an occasion to reflect on its humble beginnings as well as on the pioneering spirit of the early settlers, both native and migrant, that helped transform a former Ibaloi settlement into what it is now—a summer capital, a major destination, and a center of commerce and education.

One assertion is that the city has moved on in the direction that other major Philippine cities have taken with the business sector as the engine of growth. There is arguably an unprecedented rash of investments with big business cashing in. Tourism is on the upswing. Business confidence is upbeat.

It is a fair assessment. But the picture changes on the ground from the perspective of locals who are aghast that the city has not moved on insofar as basic services and the management of the city’s natural resources are concerned.

There is not a major concern, it is pointed out, that has not been tainted with controversy, ranging from the management of the markets (to include an antiquated abattoir), the roads, traffic, the parks, garbage, the hydros, the water system, to the city’s watersheds and forest lands—over the past 20 years.

The commentary is that while much has been said over these concerns, little or piece-meal has been done to effectively address them. The prognosis is that the city is held hostage by an ineffectual bureaucracy weighed down by a combination of factors to include patronage politics and graft and corruption, thus preventing it from getting over the hump.

The challenge is addressed to the city’s current officialdom to prove that this is not so, that the picture is not as bleak as it is portrayed, and that they have what it takes to make the difference.

It is their judgment call and their constituents are anxiously waiting to see the results.